Hungarian GP: Renault Friday practice notes

The ING Renault F1 Team completed a busy and productive opening day of
practice for the 2007 Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring.
The priority for the day was to conduct a thorough performance and
endurance comparison of the two types of ...

The ING Renault F1 Team completed a busy and productive opening day of
practice for the 2007 Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring.
The priority for the day was to conduct a thorough performance and
endurance comparison of the two types of Bridgestone Potenza tyre
available to the teams this weekend, which are the soft and super-soft
compounds from the 2007 range.

However, at the Hungaroring this task is complicated by the fact that the
circuit is used very little throughout the year, meaning the surface is
very green on the opening day of practice. The poor track conditions saw
the team complete less running than planned in the morning session as the
drivers waited for conditions to improve, while the afternoon saw cloud
cover build and some light rain fall after approximately an hour.

However, no more rain is currently forecast for the rest of the weekend.
In spite of these disruptions, the drivers successfully completed their
tyre comparisons, and managed to find a good base-line race set-up for
the R27. They completed a total of 112 laps during the day, and will now
look to improve the set-up overnight ahead of tomorrow's final practice
session which, as normal, will be dedicated to fine-tuning qualifying
performance.

Heikki Kovalainen:

"We ran a slightly unusual programme today, and it seemed to work well for
us. I felt confident and comfortable in the car straight away, and the
balance was quite neutral through both sessions. I got good quick laps on
both types of tyre, and we understand the differences in their behaviour.
I think that compared to recent races, this was a much better start to
the weekend, and we are on the right track with the set-up. Now we need
to improve the car a little bit overnight, and stay focused on producing
a good performance on Sunday.

Giancarlo Fisichella:

"The day got off to quite a difficult start for me, and we had to change
quite a lot on the set-up to get a good balance. I still wasn't happy
with the car during the short runs at the start of second practice, so I
couldn't get the maximum from the tyres, but we made some more changes
after that and it really improved the handling. There is work to do
overnight, but we have moved in the right direction today, and hopefully
that will continue tomorrow morning."

Pat Symonds, Executive Director of Engineering:

"The times on Friday are not always a reliable indication of teams' true
pace, and they must always be treated with some caution as teams often
run quite different programmes. On a circuit such as this, that is
probably even more true. We focused on completing our programme today and
started to get a handle on the tyres."

"As always, the track was very low
in grip when we started running, and the constantly-improving track
conditions further complicated our attempts to find a good handling
balance. It was important to avoid chasing the track evolution with our
set-up changes, and I think we made good progress on the basic
performance of the car in spite of this.

Denis Chevrier, Head of Engine Track Operations:

"We enjoyed a trouble-free day of running as we worked to adapt the RS27
engine to this circuit. As usual on a Friday, we completed more laps in
the afternoon than the morning, and the focus was primarily on
understanding the tyres and chassis performance over short and long runs."

"The Hungaroring is not intrinsically demanding for the V8, but the
temperatures mean it is critical to get the right cooling compromise. We
are searching for every last bit of downforce at this twisty circuit, and
being too conservative with our cooling can cost aerodynamic performance.
So far, the weekend has been incident-free, and we have found good
settings for the engines which can now be transferred to the race engines
tomorrow.